Basic dishes from Suzhou

Recently I tried to backpack and move from Shanghai to Suzhou for a few days for a short vacation. Anyway, didn't manage to do in a low key manner cos my friends in Suzhou got to know and wanted to show me around. 

Indeed it is a very beautiful place. If U watched the history of the "Three Kingdom", Suzhou is actually the capital of Dung Wu, city surrounded by water. I love the place especially the night view!!!

 Golden Chicken town.

 

As usual, I am more interested in food and my friends took me to an authentic Suzhou restaurant. No regret cos the food was really great!

Cold dish - grilled fish. Surprisingly, the fish was served warm and tasted great.

Cold dish - vegetable. This is quite common in Jiangsu area.

Cold dish - red dates. Slightly different from Shanghai style of which Shanghainese have glutinous rice in it. This is pure plain date. I luv the Shanghai style!

Lion head

I was so happy to see a bowl of soup. My friend claimed that this is Suzhou dish but I thot this origins from Yangzhou. Anyway, "lion head" is very common also in Jiangsu area. The soup was great. The sweetness from the meat was enough to make you finished the whole bowl! WOW!

This is also my favourite dish. Stewed radish. So nice.

Suzhou has 3 main must order dishes. "3 whites" White fish, white prawn and small white fish. I find it very simple but nice.

One of the 3 most polular dish in Suzhou, the crystal white prawn. Well, so-so only eventhough they took a great pride of the dish (the 1st white dish)!

 

Another dish that is among the "3 whites". This is really good. They can do it in a few style.

The 3rd white - White ikan bilis, haha! This is nice.

I luv this dessert. It has radish fillings and served hot.

Generally, the food around Jiangsu are quite similar. Suzhou's food is lighter as compared to Shanghai. A lot of sweet items too but I still find that is not as sweet as Shanghai dishes.

Try order some of them when U r in Suzhou. Happy trying!

 

 

Favourite old Shanghai Restaurant in Shanghai

Shanghai has a lot of great restaurants. However, I particularly like Jes Se Old Shanghai Restaurant at 41, Tian Ping Road in Shanghai. (Tel : 0086 6282 9260) This is my 1st choice in Shanghai if we have enough time for a great feast! Normally, you need to have at least 2 days advanced booking as the restaurant does not have many tables.

It serves the most authentic Shanghainese food and you just want for more. However, got to warn you guys that Shanghainese food is very sweet and used a lot of brown and white liquer in their cooking.

Just to highlight a few of their specialities:

Raw crab in brown liquer. Not many of u will dare to try this dish but it is one of my favourite. The meat is so sweet and succumb into the brown liquer! Yummy!!!

Sweet dried beancurd.

Stewed spare ribs. But also sweet!

Red dates stuffed with glutinous rice! My favourite too. Yummy.

Highlight of the day! Smelly beancurd wrapped with beancurd skin and deep fried. This is really great and totally different from Hong Kong style. Really stink!!! but great taste with chilli sauce. Haha!!!!!

U hardly see prawns in that size in China. So better enjoy them.

Stewed pork. Sweet and nice.

Not too sure what kind of crabs, but tasted ok! Tasted like our marmite sauce but it is not.

 My favourite soup in Shanghai. Chicken fish with seafood soup and this is not colouring. This fish will dispose of the creamy stuff into the soup. Authentic!

Shi fish is a very river fish and very expensive. Again, this place has perfected it! U just enjoy this without question!

This restaurant has a lot more great dishes and I have introduced their specialities but I will be going back for more! So happy trying.

Pricing is a bit high cos U the place is flooded by Hong Kongers and food lovers like me! Haha. So enjoy. 

Hunan food in town

One fine day my youngest son decided for the whole family to have a spicy dinner together. Thai food is too common and he wanted something different but spicy. Immediately, I thought of Hunan food and suggested the restaurant in Fraser's Place, at the entrance of Jalan Sungei Besi. We were all excited and I brought them to Xiang Man Qing, an authenthic Hunan Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. (Tel : 03-92260717)

You better be prepared cos most of the dishes are hot and spicy!!! I have ordered a few cold dishes as starter. The standards are good.

Spicy century eggs in chilli oil

Layered pork

Black fungus

We have a few main dishes and I particularly liked the steamed fish head with special chillis from Hunan. The aroma of the fish itself has given us the extra appetite to carry on the spicy torture!

We only opted for the special green chilli paste. They also have another type with red hot chilli paste with chilli oil. I also ordered a fish soup for the kids in case they surrendered and true enough even some adults couldn't carry on! No regret, as the fish soup is fantastic.

Coupled with some other vegetable dishes, we had a wonderful dinner.

We finished off with fried pumpkin cake as dessert! Also great!

Generally, the restaurant served very nice and authentic hunan food. Worth trying!!!